British archaeologists are seeking to authenticate what could be a landmark discovery in the documentation of early Christianity: a trove of 70 lead codices that appear to date from the 1st century CE, which may include key clues to the last days of Jesus' life. As UK Daily Mail reporter Fiona Macrae writes, some researchers are suggesting this could be the most significant find in Christian archeology since the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947.

The codices turned up five years ago in a remote cave in eastern Jordana region where early Christian believers may have fled after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. The codices are made up of wirebound individual pages, each roughly the size of a credit card. They contain a number of images and textual allusions to the Messiah, as well as some possible references to the crucifixion and resurrection.

David Elkington, an ancient religion scholar who heads the British research team investigating the find, has likewise pronounced this nothing less than "the major discovery of Christian history." Elkington told the Daily Mail that "it is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."

There are thousands of folks around who speak, read and write the more common languages of the Middle East in that time ~ Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Persian ~ there’s no need for a Rosetta Stone here.

If they back up events in the Bible, then they will be determined to HOAXES, but if they show that Jesus had a wife or was gay or a community organizer, that will be enough to PROVE without a shadow of a doubt that it is real.

6
posted on 03/30/2011 5:55:23 PM PDT
by BallparkBoys
(Rush is the Jack Bauer of American politics)

College boys, or, as I like to call them, the Great Brainwashed, need to give up already, put down the university koolaid(tm) and learn the Bible.

At least then they would stop using CE when they realized that if Christianity has not dissappeared in the last 2,000 years it’s probably not a realistic or productive professional goal to set for themselves.

Are you joking? The stuff is constantly being unearthed. If you travel to certain places, you’ll find that there are digs going on all the time; I have seen such in Turkey, Greece and Italy. The news hits at certain times but the work is ongoing.

It’s part of an overall long-range plan by an unbelieving intelligentsia to remove Christian belief from society, as they subscribe to the utterly oversimplified view that religion is the primary cause of war.

In their little fantasy world, they have devised this part of the plan as:

a) start off by using CE as “Christian Era” under the guise of being sensitive to other religions who may have their own calendars; Christians who don’t get the important point that “Lord” has been removed will be happy because the word Christian is included.
b) after a few years, start referring to CE as “Common Era”, sliding further down the slope, proposing that this 1/1/0000 date is just an arbitrary point in time. The word Lord had to be removed to do that. Now, it’s just an origin date for our present commonly used calendar that all nations agree on merely for convenience.

The overall plan includes such other games as multi-culturalism and scraping Biblical inscriptions off of American historical places and objects.

All true. I remember when the great Dead Sea Scrolls were rolled out—we kept hearing about how they were going to change the beliefs of Christians, repudiate the Old Testament, negate the whole of western civ. But I think they were just repeating the reviews (pardon me, “scholarly criticism”) of “The Passover Plot.”

Yep, that fella Cliff thought he had all the answers,
I had to correct him a number of times, as everyone
knows Cod Ices are a favorite summer treat in the
New England states, in fact I remember seeing our President
gobbling a Cod Ice on his third or forth vacation.

Never could get used to the taste myself.

Cod Akbar!

26
posted on 03/30/2011 8:29:28 PM PDT
by tet68
( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)

Maybe they are children’s books, for the kids to look at so they won’t make noise during the liturgy. Might test them for crayon residue but if they were coloring books, probably too much time has elapsed and none of the crayon residue has survived.

I was too smart to be sucked in on the USPS pension fiasco so I invested all my money with a Barrister from Nigeria. I expect to reap a huge fortune soon but I am having a hard time keeping up with the monthly transfer fees he keeps asking for. It’s great though, I am really getting to be slim and trim since I don’t have money for food.

30
posted on 03/31/2011 5:01:22 AM PDT
by RipSawyer
(Trying to reason with a liberal is like teaching algebra to a tomcat.)

"Might test them for crayon residue but if they were coloring books, probably too much time has elapsed and none of the crayon residue has survived."

Trivia Time: Encaustic painting, which is done with the pigments suspended in hot beeswax (i.e. old fashioned crayon) is one of the most durable media out there. Here's one from about 100 years before Christ...

Once you got paper and widespread literacy the Protestant Option, of course, became quite popular.

Memnonic statuary, carvings, architectural forms, drawings, paintings, mosaics ~ were, in their own time, valid forms of conveying information, or assisting the illiterate in receiving it (and using it themselves).

Visual technology is still valid for the use of conveying information ~ even religious information.

Now, a reconciliation of various schools of thought on the matter of the prohibition on "graven images". Some argue that the point in ancient times was to suppress worship of the gods of nature ~ so no more Zeus with lightning bolts. Even in the times of Greek hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East people continued to mix and match statuary with infanticide. Treatments for infertility were just as primitive and crude so a "graven image" might well be nothing more than a "device" and not a "god" at all ~ maybe a representation of a demigod?

With Islam they went so far as to suppress the drawing of plants. One might suppose desert people thought of jungles as godlike.

So, does the existence of a statue or picture inside a church imply the occupants worship the statue or picture?

I doubt it. After all, if that were the case Chinese could never become Christians ~ even their writing is based on pictures.

LOL...you must have missed the thread a few weeks back where this was argued into the ground. I happen to agree with you, and presented some of the very same arguments you did as well as a few others :-)

Some people fail to understand that printing the letters "G-O-D" is merely arranging a few million ink molecules on paper into a visual symbol to communicate a larger concept. They take great umbrage however, when a few million paint molecules are arranged on canvas for the same purpose :-)

"Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth day in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names."

I take issue with changing from A.D. and B.C. because it is an attempt to slowly cloud truth and history in the minds of future generations, so I refuse to acknowledge anything but A.D. and B.C.

Throughout history, when foreigners intend to enslave a people, they attempt to wipe out their history and culture so they lose their national identity. Once national identity is unknown to citizens, they cease fighting to preserve it.

Any educator who engages is obfuscating, changing or omitting American history and historical roots is a Traitor attempting to subvert the Constitution. Because for an educated person, this is not done by accident. If my poor pitiful brain remembers what A.D. means, so does every professor in this land. Traitors in time of war are unceremoniously shot.

Turns out there's a reason why all the Bible related archaeological discoveries are announced about the same time as Christmas or Easter ~ it's a koinkydink.

Most of your peer review journals as well as popular science/history periodicals are published FOUR TIMES PER YEAR at roughly equal intervals.

There's a USPS rule regarding the minimum number of times you need to publish to be recognized as a Periodicals Class publication entitled to the lower Periodicals Class rates of postage.

That minimum number of times is FOUR. It's been in place for over a century!

So, publish in December ~ then publish in April ~ then publish in July ~ then publish in September ~ you are hitting some peak times in America's public life ~ to wit: Christmas, Easter, Mid-Summer and Fall Semester/Harvest. This is a very popular schedule particularly since you can expect your readers to have some Holiday Free Time to read your publication. With that seasonality in place it's a logical step to do the Bible/Rome/Greece stuff in December. Other related materials gravitate around the other holiday periods.

Turns out there's a reason why all the Bible related archaeological discoveries are announced about the same time as Christmas or Easter ~ it's a koinkydink.

Most of your peer review journals as well as popular science/history periodicals are published FOUR TIMES PER YEAR at roughly equal intervals.

There's a USPS rule regarding the minimum number of times you need to publish to be recognized as a Periodicals Class publication entitled to the lower Periodicals Class rates of postage.

That minimum number of times is FOUR. It's been in place for over a century!

So, publish in December ~ then publish in April ~ then publish in July ~ then publish in September ~ you are hitting some peak times in America's public life ~ to wit: Christmas, Easter, Mid-Summer and Fall Semester/Harvest. This is a very popular schedule particularly since you can expect your readers to have some Holiday Free Time to read your publication. With that seasonality in place it's a logical step to do the Bible/Rome/Greece stuff in December. Other related materials gravitate around the other holiday periods.

I take the position in the debate that the people against the use of pictoral material in the teaching of religion are in a conspiracy with the Chinese Communist party to force the Chinese people into using Pin Yin ~ (a latin alphabet type of sound/character system).

Only then will these people allow the Chinese the use of the Bible or to follow Christianity.

Because of my background I was once asked to give a presentation to a Bible Study group on the signs and symbols in Christian art. I started out by holding up the Hangul word for "Stop" and asked how many people in the room knew what it meant. Not a hand went up. When I presented the same word in white letters on a red octagon, and asked how many people understood the meaning, every hand went up.

My whole point was that visual symbols can communicate powerful meanings to even the illiterate, and indeed up until the time of Gutenberg and for a while afterwards, much of what the faithful knew of their faith came from sermons greatly enhanced by sculpture, painting, stained glass, etc.

There's a fascinating little passage in the movie The Mission, when Jeremy Irons's character meets up with the Guarani Indians. One of the few items he has to instruct the natives is a small painting of a Madonna and Christ child.

Great example ~ the "sign" I watch for is the Day when they no longer practice the burnt offering.

Most Christians imagine that since Christians don't do that, and Jews no longer do it, nor do Moslems or a number of other fairly well known religions that we have reached that "time".

Hindus still use the burnt offering ~ particularly those who also "adore" a portrayal of a young child (as an icon, not a statue) who is also Krishna ~ a presumptive messiah sent by God or God's counselors or a Heavenly committee (or another hundred ways of describing how that happened).

I think we are falling behind with the Hindus. Words alone, and even limited Christian iconography have not succeeded in pushing aside one messianic vision with another.

We haven't even converted the Jews !!!

Note, I have a friend who does his "adoration" while standing on his head with his legs in a seated lotus position. He's now in his 70's. Try it some time. Otherwise his bigtime traditional "god" is the one of money ~ keeps a copy on his keychain.

I know enough about this business to figure out what is simply imagery used as a memnonic, or to push a certain philosophy into the mind, and also to figure out what is traditional idolotry.

I'm never surprised at the number of posters who will say all sorts of things.

Still waiting on someone who can explain how we can produce a Bible for the Chinese to read that isn't full of pictures.

This is no small issue with me. Think logically ~ let's say that to receive salvation we need to participate in the sacraments ~ and with respect to one of them every time. Communion is ordered by Jesus Himself.

So, we go further and someone says "Yes, we must always serve bread and wine" ~ not just a cracker and grape juice. I show up for Communion as directed but let's say I have that East Asian gene that makes it impossible to consume alcohol, and let's add to that Celiac disease which makes it impossible to consume wheat, barley or rye products.

That right there writes East Asian Celiacs out of Christianity!

So, I go back to the Sccriptures and they tell the Disciples to preach to the whole world ~ there's no exception for Celiacs or East Asians.

Logically, then, Communion can be satisfied with something besides wine and wheat flour bread. Protestants have earlier overcome their resistance to alcohol by relying on grapejuice, or water under duress.

Same here ~ we may need to use pictures or even statues to convey the elemental religious truths. But, we don't worship them.

That doesn't mean there aren't people who don't worship the statuary and pictures, but that's a choice ~ a bad choice. Kind of like making the Koran "holy". Moslems have buildings specially constructed for he storage of old Korans ~ a clear piece of evidence that they worship a book.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.